drought (Page 13)

The High Plains in southeastern Colorado were the heart of the 1930s Dust Bowl, and conditions today are as dry as they were 70 years ago. John Stulp, a wheat farmer, says, “We had to come out here with a chisel and chisel up these dirt clods, bring them up on the surface to keep the topsoil from blowing around.” Stulp says his farm hasn’t received any measurable rain in nearly a year and he’s already lost his winter wheat crop.

In the nearby Arkansas River Valley, corn farmer Bob Wilger has the same problem?no water. The Amity Canal, built in 1860, usually carries runoff from melted mountain snow, but this year it has delivered only one “run.” “I’m not sure how we’ll get through it all, ” Wilger says. “We’ll find a way, but I don’t know how it will all come about.” read more

While India and Pakistan threaten to annihilate each other with nuclear bombs, both countries are rapidly losing a weather war caused by global warming. Sundeep Waslekar, director of the International Center for Peace Initiatives, says that even if the 2 countries make peace, it will only last a few years until water wars set off a full-scale conflict.
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Charles Seabrook writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Federal water experts have presented data suggesting that metro Atlanta is taking all the water that Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River can provide, decades before it was forecast to have reached that limit.

If the assessment is verified by data being collected and analyzed in coming weeks, it could halt new development in the region. Metropolitan Atlanta would have to stop growing, or enact tougher conservation measures, or find new sources of water.
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Julie Watson writes in AP Latin America that this year, in fields in the drought-stricken Mexican state of Chihuahua, Mexican farmers are threatening a bitter fight for Rio Grande water that could affect relations between the United States and Mexico.

U.S. officials say that under a 1944 treaty, Mexico owes Texas farmers 1.5 million acre-feet of water. Each acre-foot is enough to cover one acre of land with one foot of water, an amount equivalent to 326,000 gallons. The treaty gives Mexico a larger quantity of water, but via the Colorado River far to the west.
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